This is a special breed of unmitigated evil. It's not "Fuck you, I've got mine", it's "Fuck you, mine was taken and now I need it back." I don't want to see a single person suffer more than necessary in OKC, but I somehow wish that Inhofe and Coburn were able to be held accountable for their terrible examples of humanitarianism.

Every time Republicans talk about 'spending offsets' Democrats should propose legislation limiting federal spending in a state to being no higher than the income of federal taxes from that state. Doing that would certainly reduce expenditures, shrink government, and would even be a large step to balancing the budget. That's exactly what small government conservatives want right?

Every time Republicans talk about 'spending offsets' Democrats should propose legislation limiting federal spending in a state to being no higher than the income of federal taxes from that state. It would certainly reduce expenditures, shrink government, and would even be a large step to balancing the budget. That's exactly what small government conservatives want right?

I really don't want to see Liberals propose a law that would cause the starvation death of millions of Americans across the country, even if it is just to make a political point.

"[Gay people] believe that sexuality is how everybody ought to be defined. And that means sexual freedom, sexual license to do whatever you want to do," he said. "And I know their people say, well, 'It's unfair to associate homosexuality with pedophilia or some of these other perversions.' But I believe that there is a direct connection, because what they really want is absolute sexual freedom."

Isn't that using that Rove strategy everyone always brings up? Phrase your shitty beliefs to make it sound like they are coming out of the opposition's mouth? We all know which side is judging people based on their sexual relationships, and it aint the gay-rights crowd. I would derive a whole lot of pleasure and satisfaction out of someone finding one of these anti-gay politicians who has an overweight wife and declaring they don't approve of their fat lifestyle.

SituationSoap wrote:

This is a special breed of unmitigated evil. It's not "Fuck you, I've got mine", it's "Fuck you, mine was taken and now I need it back." I don't want to see a single person suffer more than necessary in OKC, but I somehow wish that Inhofe and Coburn were able to be held accountable for their terrible examples of humanitarianism.

On a list of things the government should be doing, I believe that "protect citizens who have been affected by a natural disaster" should be pretty damn high on that list. The recent implications that this treads into "big government" is, well, just fucking sad really.

Every time Republicans talk about 'spending offsets' Democrats should propose legislation limiting federal spending in a state to being no higher than the income of federal taxes from that state. It would certainly reduce expenditures, shrink government, and would even be a large step to balancing the budget. That's exactly what small government conservatives want right?

I really don't want to see Liberals propose a law that would cause the starvation death of millions of Americans across the country, even if it is just to make a political point.

I'm fairly certain if those laws were to go into place, there wouldn't be millions of starvation deaths. Or even one starvation death. That's not how famine works, not in a country as resource rich as the US. Ethiopia where we've seen some bad famine cases, a lot of it has to do with droughts and the country being poor. In India, it would take to long to type up why people starve to death there. In the US, there's nothing in the way of stopping people getting fed.

Also, to get all pseudo zen: If a white man falls in the US from starvation, the entire country hears it. You honestly think if people in other parts of the country, democrats or republicans, would let their fellow American starve? It's just a question of how fast the media reports, and going by precedent of how the media tends to favor the reporting of missing white girls, I'm guessing once a few poor white folk start dropping dead from lack of food, there'd be food drives and marches to re-write the laws to increase welfare.

And this isn't even a criticism, because most first world countries should be able to feed its own people. While I did detour into facetiousness, it goes back to original premise: there's no way in hell in a country like the US at the moment a million people will starve to death. If there is any, well, that's a damn shame really.

I'm fairly certain if those laws were to go into place, there wouldn't be millions of starvation deaths. Or even one starvation death. That's not how famine works, not in a country as resource rich as the US. Ethiopia where we've seen some bad famine cases, a lot of it has to do with droughts and the country being poor.

It also has a lot to do with using food as a weapon, starving the opposition into submission.

Or... pretty much the same intent that would be behind withholding disaster relief from regions controlled by one's political enemies.

speaking of food, the House and Senate are both considering versions of the farm bill that cut foodstamps. last time I saw one of those enrollment charts, it was at like 1/7 of the population and still rising.

Quote:

On May 15, the House Agriculture Committee passed its 2013 farm bill, H.R. 1947 (the Federal Agriculture Reform and Risk Management Act of 2013, or FARRM). The bill would cut the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP, formerly known as the Food Stamp Program) by almost $21 billion over the next decade, eliminating food assistance to nearly 2 million low-income people, mostly working families with children and senior citizens. The bill as a whole would reduce total farm bill spending by an estimated $39.7 billion over ten years, so more than half of its cuts come from SNAP. The SNAP cuts are more than $4 billion larger than those included in last year’s House Agriculture Committee bill (H.R. 6083).

The bill’s SNAP cuts would come on top of an across-the-board reduction in benefits that every SNAP recipient will experience starting November 1, 2013. On that date, the increase in SNAP benefits established by the American Reinvestment and Recovery Act (ARRA) will end, resulting in a loss of approximately $25 in monthly SNAP benefits for a family of four. Placing the SNAP cuts in this farm bill on top of the benefit cuts that will take effect in November is likely to put substantial numbers of poor families at risk of food insecurity.

9600man, I think you might be underestimating just how much huge economic swaths of the country rely on imbalanced Federal funding flowing into their state just to keep the economy alive. Sure, people aren't going to start dying from starvation tomorrow, but 47 million Americans are on Food Stamps. A lot of that food is grown by farmers who rely on Federal subsidies to create their food. In ten years, we probably wouldn't see much change in infrastructure in New York, but we probably wouldn't see any infrastructure in Alabama. Maybe millions don't die from starvation, maybe they die from the increased violence that comes along with hungry people who can't buy food because it's nearly impossible to have it shipped to them.

The infrastructure in this country is already hanging on by a thread. In big parts of the country, massive decreases in Federal funding would mean it effectively wouldn't be usable within a decade. As much as I dislike what the South has done to our country's politics, I don't want to see it turn into a pre-industrial country over the next decade if we can stop it. That's the kind of horrible destabilizing factor that can have huge knock-on effects. What you're suggesting is bad for business in the north and the south, and we shouldn't be aiming for it, even just to make a point.

It is bullshit to claim that sufficient food wouldn't be available without federal subsidies to farmers. First, much of those subsidies don't go to food -- they go to corn or soybeans destined to be inefficiently converted to fuel or to cotton. Second, even those subsidies that do target food, often target food for feed, and thus ultimately meat. Meat, particularly beef, is a highly inefficient means of feeding people. Third, not all food subsidies lead to lower prices, tariffs and other trade barriers, price floors and quota systems lead to higher prices. Finally, there is a global market for agricultural commodities, and given the US climate, hydrography and labor cost structure, other countries should have competitive advantages for most such commodities. End the distortions and we would become a net importer. And there is plenty of global capacity to support that.

Personally, I'd love to see the 3rd world-but-for-subsidies parts of the country return to nature, with only a few maintained transportation corridors and offshore oil rig like communities in places with extremely valuable natural resource extraction potential.

People who wish to live a frontier life are welcome to stay, everyone that wants to live in the first world can move to the productive parts of the country.

It is bullshit to claim that sufficient food wouldn't be available without federal subsidies to farmers. First, much of those subsidies don't go to food -- they go to corn or soybeans destined to be inefficiently converted to fuel or to cotton. Second, even those subsidies that do target food, often target food for feed, and thus ultimately meat. Meat, particularly beef, is a highly inefficient means of feeding people. Third, not all food subsidies lead to lower prices, tariffs and other trade barriers, price floors and quota systems lead to higher prices. Finally, there is a global market for agricultural commodities, and given the US climate, hydrography and labor cost structure, other countries should have competitive advantages for most such commodities. End the distortions and we would become a net importer. And there is plenty of global capacity to support that.

Personally, I'd love to see the 3rd world-but-for-subsidies parts of the country return to nature, with only a few maintained transportation corridors and offshore oil rig like communities in places with extremely valuable natural resource extraction potential.

People who wish to live a frontier life are welcome to stay, everyone that wants to live in the first world can move to the productive parts of the country.

You noticed that most of my post was about infrastructure, not food subsidies, right?

If people didn't live in the useless parts of the country, we wouldn't need much infrastructure there, just some tracks and through roads. And if we didn't subsidize living there, most people would move. The history of civilization is the migration of people to cities.

Every time Republicans talk about 'spending offsets' Democrats should propose legislation limiting federal spending in a state to being no higher than the income of federal taxes from that state. It would certainly reduce expenditures, shrink government, and would even be a large step to balancing the budget. That's exactly what small government conservatives want right?

I really don't want to see Liberals propose a law that would cause the starvation death of millions of Americans across the country, even if it is just to make a political point.

I don't actually think that such a law should be passed. Would such a proposal be terrible policy if it were to actually pass? Of course it would be. It would also never pass even if the Democratic party was fully intent on passing such a law as people like Coburn and Inhofe know exactly which states and regions pay for things in this country. It sure as fuck isn't Oklahoma. Also, much like this incident it strikes me that there is a certain amount of equity in people suffering from the logical consequences of the policies they espouse. If New Yorkers were constantly electing people calling for an elimination of all federal disaster aid it wouldn't be terribly tragic if they then received no federal aid after Sandy. It would be precisely the desired result. Perhaps afterwards they would even realize how short sighted and self defeating such a position was to begin with. Just like perhaps the man in the article I linked is now for fire service in his county.

Mostly,I think it would be amusing to see what inane arguments people like the Honorable Senator Jim Coburn would come up with as to why they should keep getting welfare from the rest of the country. It would be quite the demonstration of doublethink.

If people didn't live in the useless parts of the country, we wouldn't need much infrastructure there, just some tracks and through roads. And if we didn't subsidize living there, most people would move. The history of civilization is the migration of people to cities.

If people hadn't migrated away from the cities, we wouldn't have the cities we have now.

edit: Oops, my post was in reply to SituationSoap. Got distracted by something and came back and hit post without thinking.

Oh I'm not saying we should, not even for a second. I'm against that sort of thing. I'm surprised at your description of the current state of the US.

A part of the problem in India is infrastructure too. That 2004 tsunami that hit Asia (and south of Africa) a few years ago brought a lot of concerted effort to raise money, along with excessive donation of clothes and food cans. I went to a Red Cross charity event that wasn't only about raising money but also awareness. The thing that's needed most in a disaster relief, both short and long term, is money. We were shown videos of these people in trucks driving donated clothes to these villages in India and dumping the clothes there, which no one needed because it wasn't clothes they were lacking in. I forget the specifics of why donating food wasn't a great idea either.

Anyway, money was more important, because it would allow the people on the ground in charge to be able to spend on what was needed, but also to help build homes and industry (shops, etc) for the long term too.

So if there is a disaster relief, even within the US, go to your nearest Red Cross (or favoured charity, fund raiser) and ask them what they need. If it's money, give them money. That's nothing to do with this thread. Just a message to pass along while we're on this topic (and also that horrible tornado incident in/near OKC).

Farm subsidies in the US I understand is a different topic that's not SRB related, but in itself does raise an interesting question of how to fix that particular problem. Isn't most of the farm subsidies going to large farms that are self sufficient, and also, spending most of it on corn?

If what you say is true, about the poor infrastructure and all, than that's really tragic to hear and I'm surprised it's really that bad in the US. For me I don't see a situation where people would starve in the US because in my mind, the US has the money to fix the problems where other poor countries rely on aid and charity fund raisers to do the same. Developing nation problems shouldn't be happening in a country like the US at all.

Farm subsidies in the US I understand is a different topic that's not SRB related, but in itself does raise an interesting question of how to fix that particular problem. Isn't most of the farm subsidies going to large farms that are self sufficient, and also, spending most of it on corn?

It is related because the vast majority of the millionaire welfare queen farmers are hard core members of the SRB.

If people didn't live in the useless parts of the country, we wouldn't need much infrastructure there, just some tracks and through roads. And if we didn't subsidize living there, most people would move. The history of civilization is the migration of people to cities.

This tripe again?

Please define useless. (actually, don't...you're also the one who said Denver wasn't a major city by any stretch of the imagination, and used the city square mileage as an indicator...completely ignoring the larger metropolis surrounding it)

Oh I'm not saying we should, not even for a second. I'm against that sort of thing. I'm surprised at your description of the current state of the US.

It's a Global Warming type thing: it isn't obvious, but it's sneaking up on us. The current estimated amount of money needed to bring the Infrastructure in the US back up to modern standards (IE: skating to where the puck is, not where it's going to be) is roughly $2 Trillion over the next ten years. Our rail system is horribly out of date and falling into disrepair. Our highway system is still fairly up to date, but the nicest roads are privately owned and require tolls to drive on. Our digital infrastructure is basically thirty years behind.

If people didn't live in the useless parts of the country, we wouldn't need much infrastructure there, just some tracks and through roads. And if we didn't subsidize living there, most people would move. The history of civilization is the migration of people to cities.

Actually the history of civilisation is a constant dynamic shift in population centres and major trade routes. It's also what we've learnt as part of sustainable farming, etc., etc, i.e. moving crops around and not starving the land. Same analogy applies:Concentrating a population in one area for long periods of time is not healthy for a country or civilisation. Culture and values change, in part due to the impact of significant development in technology. And it's unpredictable.

To go back to anecdotal mode, although it wasn't a very significant moment in history, living in HK during the SARS virus, I got to see what happens to a city gripped in the fear of a possible pandemic. I love the big city, and I'll always be a big city boy for life, but the big city isn't a good thing for civilisation if everyone was concentrated in a big cities around the world. The next big pandemic hits, the big international cities are the first to tumble. And a healthy country is one where there's a healthy dynamic between city and country side.

If Americans were smart, they'd be prepared for FUBAR. Wether it's a zombie apocalypse, or as in the case of WWII like in England, families in London would send their kids to the country side because London was one of the prime targets. Having seen HK come to a crawl during SARS, you learn just how big and venerable a city can be. Funnily enough I told my friend it would be great if there was a Walking Dead webisode based in Hong Kong, and how quickly I realised it would be the world's shortest episode because we live on an island (HK island) and there isn't exactly anywhere for us to run too (and we also have no guns).

So yeah, big cities isn't always a great thing for the long term survival of the human race. The Walking Dead teaches us that.

A data point about the US and disasters. Millions were displaced/left homeless and thousands died as a direct cause of the Dust Bowl. Not the scale of millions dying of famine, but I thought it was relevant to that part of the discussion.

If people didn't live in the useless parts of the country, we wouldn't need much infrastructure there, just some tracks and through roads. And if we didn't subsidize living there, most people would move. The history of civilization is the migration of people to cities.

This tripe again?

Please define useless. (actually, don't...you're also the one who said Denver wasn't a major city by any stretch of the imagination, and used the city square mileage as an indicator...completely ignoring the larger metropolis surrounding it)

Also, those people are *already there*. It's not like we're subsidizing folks to go move into the prairies, pioneer-style. Saying "oh by the way fuck you guys, have fun living in a Mad Max apocalypse because we're cutting off your federal support" is just not an acceptable thing to do.

The whole point of government (one of the big ones anyway) is to unevenly distribute wealth (in the form of taxes) from places where it's collected to places where it's needed. Sometimes you will get situations where, yes, there's a lot more spending than revenue collected. But that's how it's supposed to work.

If you only got back what you put in that would mean no need for a federal government... plus we've had quite a few posts bashing the "govt should be run like my home checkbook" statements, of which this is just another example.

I'm not the one who dismisses millions of urban dwellers simply because of longitude. I'm also not the one who has such a geocentric viewpoint of the world that I can loudly (and ignorantly) decry anyone outside my own comfort zone to the internet at large.